One of the first places we tried to eat at when arriving in Austin was a small out of the way Indian restaurant. I have no recollection of what it was called or even where it was since the entirety of the city was a mystery to us at the time, however what I do remember is walking in to a sweltering hot location with no AC in the middle of July that smelled horrible. Laura and I made a quick about face and haven't thought about Indian food since.
That is until this week's copy of The Austin Chronicle came out with a cover proclaiming "It's a naan issue". The last time I had good Indian food I fell in love with naan, it is such an incredible flat bread and I truly enjoy tasting each cultures different take on before meal snacks. Naan is easily in the top three along with of course Italian bread and tortilla chips. So when I came home from work last night and we had spoke earlier in the day about going out for dinner the first thing I did was scour the Chronicle to see what their recommendations were.
Naanfull is the location that made the cover and at only 12 minutes away from were we live I considered going their first, but Laura was starving and not quite as excited about Indian food as I was so we chose the slightly closer location to be our first Indian experience together and work up from there. Maharaja Indian Cafe is literally across the street from the library we frequent but because it is hidden away in a little nook of a small shopping center we had never noticed it before.
When we entered, the first thing I thought was that it looked very well decorated and did not have any unpleasant odors, two great benefits. I had read that it was run by a husband and wife team but I didn't expect them to literally be doing everything from seating us, to taking our orders, delivering our water, cooking our food and serving it to us. It took a little too long to get our water when we initially sat and I mentioned to Laura that they definitely need to hire a waitress to handle the dining area.
This got me a little worried as I was already nervous that Laura was not going to like the food and that now the service wasn't even great, but after we put our order in and got a moment to speak with both husband and wife we found out just how pleasant and friendly they actually are. They were very gracious hosts with humble intentions and sincere hospitality. We got to enjoy watching some very trippy Indian music videos while waiting for our meals to be served and all in all it didn't take very long at all from the time we ordered to the time we received our food.
As you can already imagine we definitely ordered some naan, I went with a classic chicken curry and Laura chose two vegetable samosas, which according to the menu contain potatoes and peas stuffed in a deep fried crispy pastry. My meal came with white rice which we split and as always I also tried some of her samosa. To start with though my curry was perfect. Not too spicy, but it definitely had a kick to it, and large chunks of chicken rounded it out. The naan was terrific on it's own and especially dipped in my curry sauce. Lastly the samosa was exactly what Laura was hoping it would be and anything she couldn't finish I was more than willing to help with.
I was extremely happy to have chosen such a nice establishment to bring our business to, the couple who own it are so pleasant that even if the food had been terrible I probably would have written a good review just based on their personalities. Lucky for us the food was delicious as well and we went home with a small to go bag and a pleasant new culture to make regular visits to. Chinese used to be our "exotic" culture of choice but I think after last night we may be moving slightly west on the globe.
Maharaja Indian Cafe
